James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)

In attempting to analyse and describe the art
of James McNeill Whistler, one is faced at
the outstart with the choice of two alternatives —
such a choice as the work of no other artist would
offer. For either he is great — nay, of the greatest
a master, or he is what his earliest critics called
him — a charlatan! There is no middle course. If
his artistic aims are true, few will deny his greatness;
if false, it can only be a matter of time
before his works, divested of the glamour with
which his admirers have surrounded them, are
seen in their true light. No apology is needed
for stating that it is our aim to show that he belongs
to the ranks of the great masters in art. — T.R. Way and G.R. Dennis